Bedtime Battles and Brain Health: Creating Sleep Strategies That Work

Sleep is the cornerstone of children's health, affecting brain development, learning ability, and emotional regulation. Our panel of experts dives into why kids struggle to sleep and practical strategies to help them get the rest they need without turning bedtime into a battleground.

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Transcript

Introduction to Sleep Importance

Speaker 1 0:00

Welcome to Brain-Based Parenting, the Boys Ranch podcast for families. We all know how hard being a parent is and sometimes it feels like there are no good answers to the difficult questions families have when their kids are struggling. Our goal each week will be to try and answer some of those tough questions, utilizing the knowledge, experience and professional training Cal Farley's Boys Ranch has to offer. Now. Here is your host. Cal Farley's Boys Ranch has to offer Now. Here is your host. Cal Farley's Staff Development Coordinator, joshua Sprott.

Speaker 2 0:30

Welcome back. Today we're going to talk about the importance of sleep for our kids. To do that today, I'm joined by Vanessa Dutton, senior Caseworker.

Speaker 3 0:37

Taylor Halsey, casework Supervisor.

Speaker 4 0:39

Adam Len, Clinical Intervention Specialist.

Speaker 2 0:41

All right, let's get into our question of the day. So since we're talking about sleep, I thought I'd ask y'all are you a night owl or an early bird, and do you have any must-have items for sleep?

Speaker 5 0:51

I'm 1000% a night owl. All I want in life is to be an early bird, and it has never worked. I could easily stay up till four o'clock without batting an eye, but if I have to wake up at 6am I'm mad. I'm very particular about my sleep. I always have to have my pillow. If I travel, I bring one of my blankets I don't care which one, but it has to be one of mine and then I have like a white noise. I listen to the waves crashing.

Speaker 5 1:14

To go to sleep. If it's too quiet, I can't sleep.

Speaker 4 1:18

I am totally an early bird. I love waking up early and listening to the birds and getting that first light. That's just the best time of my day.

Speaker 3 1:24

I'm kind of an all-day person. I can wake up at dawn, but I also can go to bed at midnight and still feel completely fine the next day. I have to have a blanket that my best friend gave me back in fifth grade and I still have it, and I have to sleep with it every night.

Speaker 2 1:41

I'm an early bird. I always have been. I always wanted to watch cartoons in the morning and my mom wouldn't let me watch cartoons unless my chores were done. So I had to get up super, super early so I could watch, you know, Smurfs and GI Joe and all those things. So it's just stuck ever since then. So I've always been an early bird and I don't have anything I need to sleep. This frustrates my wife, but the second my head hits a pillow, I am completely gone instantly and she cannot do that. It takes her hours to wind down.

Speaker 4 2:06

So same Sometimes I worry that she's going to start plotting.

Common Sleep Problems in Children

Speaker 2 2:09

I know right. All right, we're going to talk about sleep this week, and why is sleep essential for a child's physical health, brain development, learning and emotional regulation. Why is sleep just so important?

Speaker 5 2:22

I mean, I think to start with I can just think of myself like when I don't sleep well, I am grumpy and just annoyed that I have to be awake. But then also, you know when you sleep, that's when you're laying down your memories and rejuvenating your body.

Speaker 4 2:36

Yeah, sleeping is when we heal and when we integrate our experiences from the day.

Speaker 2 2:41

So what are some of the most common sleep problems with kids and what typically causes them?

Speaker 5 2:45

I feel like what I see in kids the most is struggles falling asleep, sometimes waking up, but a lot of times it's falling asleep and they can't shut their brains off or they don't have great sleep hygiene, and so they're doing things that are counterproductive to sleep, and so then it takes a really long time to fall asleep.

Speaker 4 3:03

Yeah, I agree Difficulty falling asleep and sometimes waking up in the middle of the night, and I think a lot of the sleeping problems that people have are directly involved with sleep hygiene and the activities from the day before and the diet from the day before. There's a whole lot that goes into it.

Speaker 2 3:19

So how do child's sleep environment and sense of safety impact their ability to fall asleep and stay asleep?

Speaker 3 3:24

I think if the bedroom is too hot and you just can't go to sleep, so that can probably be associated to, like, the sleep environment of the child. Like I need the bedroom to be Antarctica in order for me to even fall asleep at all, and so like the same, like if your blankets are too itchy or your pajamas are too tight, you just can't at least for me, I can't sleep, I have to just be very comfortable.

Speaker 4 3:46

I think that a sense of safety is extremely important. If we don't feel safe, then we're highly aroused, we have cortisol and adrenaline pumping through us and those you know those kinds of things tell our bodies that it's not okay to be asleep right now. So you know we have all this tension.

Environment and Safety Impact

Speaker 2 4:03

I think a lot of our kids here I mean, we do incident report review and bedtime is always the number one time when kids have incident reports and I think a lot of them just don't feel safe at bedtime and their stress response just spikes during that time period. So what are some ways then maybe to kind of address those different things, the environmental factors, the safety factors? How can we as parents and caregivers help address those needs?

Speaker 5 4:27

I feel like you always have to start with safety, because it doesn't matter what the environment's like if a kid doesn't feel safe. And I think starting just small of hey are you afraid of the dark? Like, do you notice when the lights go out? That's too much. Did bad things happen at nighttime? So in one of the girls' homes they talked about when the lights would go out to try to calm the home. It would amp everybody up because nighttime was a scary time previously. And so just understanding a kid's history and what makes them feel unsafe or you know some kids having a roommate that doesn't work, you know they don't have good peer interactions and so just understanding what's going on in their head and what their history is and trying to find ways to make them feel more safe.

Speaker 2 5:09

I think curiosity is so important, to kind of think you know what's different. Why is this? Why is this behavior different now than it was, you know, an hour ago? And then just being willing to meet needs when you're being curious about those things and being willing to accommodate. I have three daughters and all three of them thankfully, they all have their own rooms now, but there was a time when they all had to share a room and trying to figure out ways to accommodate each one of their sleep preferences was challenging, to say the least. But yeah, getting one's a fan, getting one an extra blanket, I mean just meeting those needs I think has helped give them a better sense of safety and comfort and meeting those needs during a bedtime.

Speaker 4 5:41

I think it helps, for it helps to remember that we are bodies living in a world and we're not just these isolated things that can, that are made to like. Just go to sleep and wake up, like what we go through during the days affects us directly, like light levels throughout throughout the day, our diets, our levels of activity all of these things play a super important role in how we sleep.

Speaker 2 6:04

I've had to start having some conversation with my two oldest daughters. They're getting ready to graduate and they're looking at living in the dorms next year and they're going to have roommates and we're already thinking about, because they're very specific in their sleeping environments Are they going to get some noise canceling headphones, are they going to get sleep masks, things like that. But I think being proactive now thinking and having those discussions hopefully will help when they get there, avoid them having some conflicts with their roommates. I just really think it's important that we as the caregivers kind of take those things very seriously and help meet those needs.

Speaker 5 6:34

Well, and I feel like everything seems worse at night, like you know, when you're sick, that's when you feel worse, and everything's a little bit scarier when it's dark and like nighttime is just kind of a creepy time.

Daily Activities Affecting Sleep

Speaker 2 6:44

So how do daytime activities like exercise, screen time and diet influence sleep quality?

Speaker 5 6:50

Just, so much.

Speaker 4 6:51

It's everything right. I read some really interesting things about our diets and you know it often starts off with a whole lot of carbs, continues with a whole lot of carbs and then at nighttime you have like a big hamburger or steak or something like that. And I think ideally what our bodies need is maybe a little bit more protein earlier on in the day to help fuel us for the activity that our bodies are expecting to go through. Maybe some more protein and ideally a bigger meal at lunch than even at dinnertime, and that bigger meal and more protein at lunch kind of helps maintain the energy as we approach the the end of the day, and then dinnertime shouldn't necessarily be filled with food that gives us all this energy, because that's not really what we're doing.

Speaker 5 7:35

So you're saying we should all be having girl dinner is what you're advocating for. I'll have what we're all should be having girl dinner.

Speaker 4 7:42

Girl dinner. Yeah, what is girl dinner?

Speaker 5 7:43

Like your little snacks. You got your little kind of like a charcuterie board but like the it's like an adult Lunchable yeah. Like you, pull your string cheese and your lunch meat out because you don't want to cook dinner. That's girl dinner. Okay, crackers, totally yeah, crackers.

Speaker 4 7:58

Lots of veggies too.

Speaker 2 8:01

What about screen time? Oh man screen time. There's so much with screen time. Yeah, we could do a whole podcast. We probably should do one. Talk a little bit about that.

Speaker 3 8:09

Well, I mean what researchers say always about the blue light that comes from screen time. Like, I read a lot and so I also tend to wake up a lot in the middle of the night, and so when I can't fall asleep I don't go for my phone, I try to get my Kindle, because the Kindles don't give off that blue light, and so then I'm actually able to fall asleep within 30 minutes of reading because my eyes actually get tired and they're not.

Speaker 4 8:32

Whatever. The word is yeah. So there's like the physical light that enters our eyes, but then also the content of what we're looking at yeah. A lot of what we're looking at is not it's meant to be. It's meant to increase our arousal. That's how like, that's how people get likes and things like that. And you know the news isn't going to show calming stories. Facebook isn't going to show us calming things. So the content of what we're looking at on the screen, I think, sends us to bed aroused.

Speaker 5 8:57

But I'm even thinking of like TikTok, like you're watching. If you're scrolling through TikTok, you're watching 30 seconds or a minute and it's just fast and it's like, quickly your brain is changing to something different and you're changing to something different. And I don't know how often at night I'm just scrolling through TikTok and you feel, you know, I can convince myself. Well, I'm relaxing, I'm just sitting down watching TikTok, when really you're just fully overstimulating yourself.

Speaker 3 9:20

And then like social media. If the kids are watching or looking at social media before bed, then what if they're getting bullied or what if you know all of the things? So then they go to bed with anxiety because they've been thinking they're just looking at all of the content they're on social media. They just I think it just gives somebody an anxiety.

Speaker 4 9:37

And that's not going to help them at all with any kind of felt safety in their bedroom even.

Speaker 2 9:41

And one of the things it was difficult but we ended up making where our girls had to turn their phones in at night.

Speaker 2 9:46

And initially, you know they didn't like it. They were a little grumpy about it, but in the long run it's been. Their sleep quality has been so so much better. So I strongly recommend having a turn in time for screens for the kids and my daughters are very good about. If they come into my room at night and they see me with on the phone. They're like, dad, you probably need some good sleep time too. You should put your phone. So I've had to work on that as well, because it is important for us to model that.

Speaker 4 10:10

I think for them. So I think daytime activities like exercise are important to consider as well. A lot you know our kids, they they go to school and they sit down during class and they they have some athletics and some, you know, some time to get up and be active. But for the most part we ask our kids to calm down during the days and then so after school happens, they ended up, they ended up having all this extra energy in them that they they weren't able to dissipate during the day, and so a lot of activity after dinnertime is not isn't going to help with their sleep.

Speaker 5 10:42

And then balancing the kids, who immediately come home from school and take a nap and they're like I can't fall asleep. And I'm like man, you sleep for three hours after school every day. That's why.

Speaker 4 10:51

Yeah, totally Like. Before 6 PM is not a time for a nap.

Creating Healthy Bedtime Routines

Speaker 2 10:56

I think about kind of nutrition too. Caffeine, sugar, all those different things are important to kind of monitor, not just let them have carte blanche access to whatever they want, but doing some research and understanding what is in the drinks that they're drinking and food they're eating that might be causing them to have energy spikes at night. There's a lot of caffeine and things you're not even, you don't even realize All right. What about key components of a healthy bedtime routine? How can parents encourage good sleep hygiene without making bedtime a battle?

Speaker 4 11:23

One of the things I think is that our healthy bedtime routine starts the moment you wake up. Ideally, our bodies go through this natural cortisol curve throughout the day where, when we wake up, our bodies are expecting certain things of us, certain things to put into our diet, certain activities and levels of activity, and so to be mindful of those kinds of things, make it so that you don't have to just try to squeeze a healthy bedtime routine into an hour before bed. I think it's much bigger than that.

Speaker 3 11:51

And I think every person is different. So what might work for me probably won't work for Taylor to fall asleep.

Speaker 2 11:57

Yeah, I think you're absolutely right that we have to be flexible with our kids. What's going to be helpful for one of our kids may be something that's going to amp up the other one. So just being cognizant of that is important. I think one of the things to kind of be aware of is stick with a routine. So often we have these great ideas and we start to initiate it and the kids push back against our routine. So then we kind of cave and just kind of let them go back to whatever. But I think it is important to stick with it because initially they probably will resist the new changes, but if you stick with it for a while it will kind of eventually start to pay off. Their bodies will adjust. I think that it's kind of like when you, if you think about from day one with babies, do they have much understanding of night and day? It's terrible, right.

Speaker 3 12:36

I remember my doctor telling me to take my new like the newborn outside first first light as soon as the baby woke up. Take the baby outside and it helps the baby figure out their circadian rhythm. And so I thought that was really neat and within a couple of weeks she was able to sleep just longer periods of time at night.

Speaker 2 12:51

Yeah, and it's just like that it takes. It took some time, but after a while figured it out, right. The same thing with the kids. I hate daylight savings time. Yeah, like man, even for me. Yeah, it takes my body a long time to adjust to that. I don't know about you guys. Yeah.

Speaker 4 13:04

It throws off our circadian rhythm. It totally does.

Speaker 5 13:07

I think especially long weekends are the worst, but sometimes even normal weekends like I will. I am a night owl and so I'll stay up really late and then I'll sleep in really late and by Monday I'm completely messed up and I can't get back on track in the whole next week. I'm just exhausted because I got out of like my healthy work routine and slipped back into being a night owl.

Speaker 2 13:27

And one of the funniest mistakes we made with our girls is like on weeknights or I mean weekend nights or holidays They'd always like oh, if you let us stay up till midnight, we promise we'll sleep in tomorrow morning. And they never sleep in, Never, ever. But they're always 100 times more grumpy. So I wish we would have just said nope, bedtime's bedtime, Because we never, we never.

Speaker 4 13:46

On the positive side of that exchange, you asked us earlier on if we're night owls or morning people. Change. You asked us earlier on if we're night owls or morning people and we all had different answers and so you know. You guys said it earlier. I think it's important to look at the kid, look at, treat everybody as an individual. What works for somebody might not work for another person.

Non-Medication Sleep Strategies

Speaker 2 14:04

So how can parents use music, relaxation techniques or sensory tools to help improve sleep?

Speaker 3 14:10

I can speak for my toddler, but we listen to ambient music before she goes to bed or while she's sleeping and stuff like that. She has a sound machine and if I'm actually using my Spotify and so she can't use that playlist that I have set up for her, or like she has to also have the room cold, it has to be Antarctica in there for her and I also put lavender essential oils. Room cold, it has to be Antarctica and there for her. I also put lavender essential oils and I think I messed her up because I like lavender essential oil to help me go to sleep at night.

Speaker 3 14:34

And so now she's like mommy, where's my good smells? And just like that white noise, like I like the box fan sound.

Speaker 4 14:42

So I think these things music and relaxation techniques and sensory tools are really there to kind of help reduce arousal and increase felt safe. I think it's probably some trial and error.

Speaker 5 14:54

Like I think I would feel great under a weighted blanket. My sister would think you were suffocating her. So like I think, understanding that you might try something and it won't work, but kind of figuring what each kid needs to feel safe and to feel relaxed.

Speaker 2 15:08

Yeah, my youngest daughter, when she first got her room by herself she was scared a lot and had a hard time going to sleep and we ended up getting her a weighted blanket to help her out and it was really effective for her. It was great. And then, as soon as she kind of got that felt safety and was comfortable with it, then she's like I don't think I need this anymore and she was fine. But it was a great way to kind of just kind of help her get through the night initially. So what are some common mistakes parents make when trying to improve their child's sleep and what are some ways to maybe avoid those?

Speaker 3 15:33

I think, being inconsistent with your routine. I mean, we talked about it earlier like on the weekends, like your whole week is messed up and I just staying consistent with, like how you get your child to bed and all of that.

Speaker 4 15:43

And ideally a bedtime routine shouldn't be stressful. And you know I have a six year old and often our bedtime routine shouldn't be stressful. And you know I have a six-year-old and often our bedtime routine is very stressful, so it's not always as easy as it seems, I do think that routine is so, so important.

Speaker 2 15:57

I always hated when school or other things would throw in events that would throw off our daily routine and I just knew it was going to be a horrible, horrible night, because they're so susceptible to changes in their routines at bedtime. So while we're not doctors, I mean you should always go to talk to your pediatrician for professional advice. What are some maybe non-medication strategies for helping kids sleep better, and when should parents consider something like melatonin?

Speaker 4 16:21

So I think melatonin is a. It's a natural hormone that we create that tells us. It tells our bodies not to go to sleep, but when to go to sleep, and so melatonin seems like it would be most useful when we're trying to recreate that circadian rhythm that's gotten out of whack. So maybe after like jet lag, or during the winter months when we're not exposed to as much sunlight. It doesn't. I've heard that it shouldn't be used long-term because it can disrupt your own production of that hormone. So it's kind of like a temporary fix.

Speaker 3 16:51

It's just to help you find the tools to get a better sleep hygiene. But like we've been talking about just different things we use to go to sleep, but like we use lavender essential oils, a warm bath, weighted blankets and just calming music and making sure the temperature of the room is comfortable and if the child needs a nightlight or if they don't need a nightlight, I think just having all of these strategies put in place, I cannot take melatonin. It gives me nightmares and so you have to, I think, be mindful of the person, because what if melatonin isn't the right thing for?

Speaker 1 17:20

them.

Speaker 3 17:20

So there's things like magnesium that you can use, or just other different supplements.

Speaker 4 17:24

You know, creating a good sleeping environment before it's time to go to sleep is helpful, I think too. So to dim the lights, to quiet down, to kind of reduce the chaos just beginning, really ideally, I guess, after dinner, start to dim the lights, make it quiet.

Speaker 2 17:39

I think that's such a good point. I know some house parents who used to work out here would always tell their kids or the kids in the home what their consequences were for the day right before bedtime, and we're always confused why they'd have to call for help to get the kids settled down. So yeah, giving consequences or bad news is probably not a great thing to do right before bedtime.

Speaker 4 17:59

And you know that goes. That makes me think of the content that we're consuming right before bed. To content that's going to cause us distress or arousal isn't necessarily what we should be looking at right before bed.

Speaker 5 18:13

Well, and melatonin is not NyQuil, it's not going to just put you right to sleep. So if all of your lights are on, your music is blaring and you're watching TikTok, melatonin is probably not going to do anything. So you can't just take it and expect that it's going to solve all your problems for you.

Speaker 2 18:24

So how can relational connection before bed improve?

Speaker 4 18:27

sleep. That makes me think of felt safety. So if you have this, if you have a trusting relationship that's reinforced before bedtime, it's easier to go to sleep feeling at ease, knowing somebody's there if you're going to wake up or something happens, because you just saw them and they're not far.

Sleep Requirements by Age

Speaker 2 18:40

So how much sleep do children and teens actually need and how does it change as they grow? Probably more than they're getting.

Speaker 4 18:46

Yeah, I think it's a general rule. So I looked this up before we came here. I was looking on the American Academy of Sleep Medicine website and they recommended that babies like less than a year old get 12 to 16 hours a day, including naps. That sounds delightful, I know Toddlers 1 to 2 get 11 to 14. Kids 3 to 5 get 10 to 13. Ages 6 to 12 should have 9 to 12 hours, and 13 and older should have 8 to 10 hours of sleep, according to this website.

Speaker 2 19:21

So that tells me that I think a lot of our kids probably aren't getting the amount of sleep they're supposed to. I think one of the things we have in society right now is we're just all we have this like addiction to busyness. So many different activities we have, we're over-program our kids and you know your basketball band, all good things, but just so many things that you burn the candle at both ends and then and then the kids kind of get overwhelmed and don't get enough sleep. So how important do you think it is to have some of those maybe hard conversations with the kids where you kind of talk about setting priorities and maybe not being so busy? What do you guys think about that and how would you do that?

Speaker 5 19:52

I feel like that's an ongoing conversation we have with kids of who are trying to play two sports and be involved in, you know, student council, and then they want they're going to school all day. And when do we step in and say, no, that's too much, but I think it's? We always try to start with hey, you, you've got a lot on your plate and maybe you know you're not managing it well, or these are the effects that we're seeing and try to give the kids the power first to say, right, like maybe I don't need to play every sport, but then also, at some point, stepping in and saying, as you know the parent or the caregiver of, hey, you can't do this in a healthy way and I'm going to make sure that you do.

Key Recommendations and Closing

Speaker 2 20:28

I think sometimes they need us to be that person too. They just can't give up something. In the beginning they may not like it, but in the long run they'll probably appreciate that we stepped in and helped them out. All right, if parents could make just one change to help improve their child's sleep, what would you recommend?

Speaker 5 20:42

I feel like we've said routine the most, because I think so many things are dependent. You know if it's too cold or it's too hot, but everybody needs that routine.

Speaker 4 20:51

I like that. I was thinking well, all kinds of things. Does it have to be just one Sleep? Hygiene Diet and screens and like activity and we'll just call it sleep hygiene. Yeah, for sure, routine.

Speaker 2 21:04

All right, well, thank you so much for joining us today. If you'd like to contact us and ask us a question, our email address is podcast at calfarleyorg. I'll make sure and leave a link in the description. And, as always, you might have to loan out your frontal lobes today. Just make sure you remember and get them back.

Speaker 1 21:17

Thank you for listening to Brain Based Parenting. We hope you enjoyed this show. If you would like more information about Cal Farley's Boys Ranch, are interested in employment, would like information about placing your child, or would like to help us help children by donating to our mission, please visit calfarleyorg. You can find us on all social media platforms by searching for Cal Farley's. Thank you for spending your time with us and have a blessed day.